Update : Improved (current) tutorial available here.

I’ve been looking for a decent Calendar application lately so I thought I would try Mozilla’s new Sunbird release (v0.3, released October 11, 2006). Perhaps due to its very early release, or perhaps related to the Mozilla vs Debian fiasco it is not yet included in Ubuntu repositories. For those interested in trying it out here are a few quick steps to installing it manually on your Ubuntu machine.

1. Download Sunbird (Save As…)
2. Unpack the archive (should be on Desktop): sudo tar -C /opt -xjvf sunbird-0.3.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
3. Create a link: sudo ln -s /opt/sunbird/sunbird /usr/bin/sunbird
4. Create meu item: sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/sunbird.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Sunbird
Comment=Sunbird Calendar
Exec=sunbird
Icon=/opt/sunbird/icons/mozicon128.png
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Applications;Network

5. Refresh the menu: killall gnome-panel

If anyone else has used Sunbird and has suggestions on its use or on another application that might offer more please let me know. I hope these instructions work for everyone.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linux, sunbird, mozilla, calendar

This tutorial will outline how to install Gaim 2.0beta3.1 plus Off-The-Record 3.0.0 on Ubuntu Dapper v6.06.

I had been one of the early adopters of Gaim 2.0beta3 but had trouble finding support for the encryption plugins that I was used to. I initially reverted to Gaim 1.5.x and used the gaim-encryption plugin (which was yet unsupported in 2.0beta3).

After additional research I have found that the OTR (Off-The-Record) plugin is superior. If you currently don’t use any type of encryption I would suggest looking into it. The below steps will allow you to use the latest version of Gaim plus Off-The-Record messaging on Ubuntu Dapper Drake v6.06.1

Step 1:

sudo aptitude install libavahi-compat-howl0 libgnutls11 libmeanwhile1 libotr2

Step 2:

Download my gaim2.0 beta3.1 package which includes the latest gaim, gaim-data, libgadu and OTR builds in .deb format. Also includes optional 'guification', 'gaim-dev' & 'gaim-dbg' packages.

Step 3:

sudo dpkg -i gaim_2.0.0+beta3.1-0ubuntu1_i386.deb gaim-data_2.0.0+beta3.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb libgadu3_1.6+20060616-1_i386.deb gaim-otr_3.0.0+cvs20060530-1_i386.deb

Step 4:

Activate the Off-The-Record plugin in Tools > Plugins > Off-The-Record Messaging

Step 5:

When initiating a conversation with a contact using OTR right-click on the OTR button and 'Start Private Conversation'. Follow the prompts & then 'Verify Fingerprint' in the same menu.

EDIT: Updated the included package with the gaim 2.0beta3.1 package released Aug 20, 2006.

I’ve decided it was time to update my site. My old theme was too vertically thin considering the content that I had so I updated it this morning to a wider auto-sizable theme.

I thought I’d share a great place to get some wordpress themes. There is a huge list of themes available, searchable by columns, colors, ratings, etc. For anyone else needing a wordpress blog facelift, check it out.

I also wanted to thank Aaron for sharing the new theme with me. I’m still working on customization.

My first impression of Ubuntu Edgy Eft (after roughly 10 minutes of use) is a positive one. The aren’t too many GUI changes that I’ve seen outside of a noticeable font difference. Some things that I have noticed:

• 2.6.17-5 kernel
• Gnome 2.15.4

It seems noticeably faster as well. I’m going to get back to testing. Anyone with an extra machine should really try out Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft Knot 1)

I recently posted about using the new Flock browser and recieved some great supporting comments from readers. It seems everyone that uses it really likes it. It is feature rich, clean, stylish and fast. So far there is nothing that I don’t like about Flock.

I do have a question though. It seems that all things Flock default to Yahoo. Why? Everyone knows Google is the soon-to-be ruling power of the known universe. Shouldn’t we appease the search Gods and use the Google engine? I know I can change the settings to default to Google, I’m just wondering if anyone knows why they decided to support Yahoo.

Well I got a lot of feedback concerning my post about Winamp and it’s being pwned by AOL. I wanted to share some of the suggestions I recieved for those of you not following the comments section (read: everyone).

The player I ended up trying and seemed happy with was Zinf (Zinf Is Not FreeA*p).

The Zinf audio player is a simple, but powerful audio player for Linux and Win32. It supports MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV and Audio CD playback, SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming, RTP streaming, a powerful music browser, theme support and a download manager.

What I liked about it was that it was lightweight and only worried about playing audio. I can’t stand those “kitchen sink” players that do video + every imaginable codecs, audio + every imagineable codec, ripping, burning, etc etc ad naseum. I am still testing this app, but as of now it is in use vs research.

Another suggestion I got was for Sonique which is apparently really nice, but no longer in development. Thanks to Lamont for that suggestion. I may check that out when I get back into work on Monday. If I can find a copy he had very good reviews about it.

I’ve recently started using Evolution again to handle my email. I remember using an older version ‘way back when’ when I used RH9. I remember at that point I could load RSS feeds, but now I can’t find that option/feature anywhere. I was told it was an optional plugin at this point? If anyone can point me to where I can find it I’d appreciate it.

So I installed SUSE 10.1 on my machine to get some experience with some other distributions. If any of you SUSE people want to drop by with some comments (read: instructions on how to use it) I’d appreciate. So far my opinion on suse (mainly with YaST): This sucks.

I setup three ‘installation sources’ per some instructions from Scott Morris. They are the following:

http://packman.unixheads.com/suse/10.1

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-10.1/non-oss-inst-source

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/SL-10.1/inst-source

These are all set as ‘Status: on’ and ‘Refresh: on’. Now I know I should see some updates after a bare install from adding those sources. The little globe-deal in the status bar tells me that I’ve got ‘no updates available’.

Now the last time I tried to update those sources it gave me some error about not being able to kill zmd? Did I read somewhere that zmd was something new & caused issues? Also, if I go in & select a new package to install YaST just crashes. I’m honestly a little surprised that (unless its just me) that a release like 10.1 (version 10 should be mature) is having this many problems.

Last time I tried SUSE I felt it was #2 on my list of preferred distros. After this experience it has definitely dropped out of that spot. A little help?